Life After Leadership: a Control Freak’s Nightmare

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a control freak. Ok, more than just a bit. Maybe two bits. Or three. It’s one of those things that I accept as part of my personality and heritage. My mother was a control freak, her mother was a control freak, her mother was kind of a control freak but it was ok because she was a single mom in WWII times and I bet her mother before that was a control freak too. To those who don’t know me well, I come across as organized so it’s rarely a problem. When is it a problem? When I decide to let go and not take charge.

A couple of posts back, I talked about my decision to resign as an officer in my guild. The current state of affairs is irrelevant and I’m sure no one cares anyway. Nor do I even know the current state of affairs because I managed to get through a few days without begging for news. You have to understand, not begging for news is a big deal for me. I’m very excited about my progress in that respect.

So at first I kind of felt bad for just walking out on everyone. Then I was relieved. Then I was immensely sad for about a day. Then things went back to normal, or almost.

Old habits die hard.Me: WHAT DO YOU MEAN I CAN’T MOVE MORE THAN FIVE THINGS FROM ONE BANK TAB TO ANOTHER?!?! ALL THOSE ORE STACKS ARE IN THE WRONG TAB AND THERE ARE MORE THAN FIVE!!!! SOMEBODY CLEAN THE FRIGGIN BANK BEFORE MY EYES BLEED. (Note that this ended up being taken literally by a hacker and my bank griefs were solved for a few days)

I don’t care what you say, no one does things as well as I do.Me: THATS NOT HOW YOU POST A TEN MAN RAID! YOU’RE DOING IT ALL WRONG! NO ONE WILL SIGN UP, NO ONE!10 man raid person: There are signups.Me: THEY DIDN’T SIGN UP PROPERLY DAMMIT

And I need to know the what, when, how, where, how much of everything.Me: Why didn’t random person W get slotted and random person Z did?Wise raid leader: *gives reasonable explanation*Me: Yes but….Wise raid leader: *gives more perfectly reasonable explanation*Me: How about random person V?Wise raid leader: Did you hear divine sacrifice is getting changed in 3.3?Me: *falls for it every time*

One thing is going wonderfully: not setting pally buff assignments. I thought it would be the hardest habit to rid myself of since I claimed and jealously defended the “official buff person” title nearly two years ago. Boy, was I wrong. I can’t begin to describe the satisfaction I feel when someone complains about pally buffs. I just happily alt-tab out, purring “not my problem”.

What is excruciatingly difficult is being confronted to the very thing that causes a person to become a control freak: the fear of not being needed, of not mattering. While it is no laughing matter, sometimes it is expressed in strange ways.Me: OMG HOW DARE YOU DO THE DAILY WITHOUT ME.Daily people: You were on a non-guild alt when we started.Me: YOU COULD HAVE ASKED ANYWAY!Daily people: We did ask you when you were on your main half an hour ago and you said no.Me: WELL MAYBE I CHANGED MY MIND!Daily people: We’ll run it with you afterwards on our alts.Me: NO, I DONT WANT TO DO IT AFTERWARDS! I HATE YOU ALL!!!!

I’ll be terribly heartbroken, but not surprised if I log in one day to discover that my 80s are no longer guilded.

I’m currently going through something similar now… so sick of all the pressure of taking care of everything in my alliance, so I’m trying to back out… but they keep taunting me with discussions about ranks! and SPREADSHEETS!!! so mean.

And I totally understand what you mean about fearing no longer being needed. Even though I *know* I don’t want all that pressure, I still want everyone to think it was way better when i took care of it, dammit.

I joke around about it because I find it gets the point across better, but as I see it, when you put your heart into a project (and running a guild/alliance/raid week can certainly be a project of large proportions!), you get attached to it. It’s also quite flattering for the ego when your project is a success. Seeing someone else take over feels like watching a stranger wear your clothes or take over your house. It’s just not right! I guess this is part of the reason why we often see leaders (in our workplace, hobbies or other) burn out because they won’t delegate.

Managing an alliance seems like it would be a major headache! Managing a cohesive guild is challenging enough, I can’t imagine having to coordinate several separate guilds at once!